Robert Charles Durman Mitchum was a film actor, author, composer and singer who is #23 on the American Film Institute’s list of the greatest male American screen legends of all time. He appeared in Charles Laughton’s only film as director, The Night of the Hunter (1955). Mitchum also starred in Thunder Road (1958), Cape Fear (1962), and the Howard Hawks western El Dorado (1966). Robert Mitchum recorded a song he had written for the film Thunder Road, titled “The Ballad of Thunder Road”. The country-styled song became a modest hit for Mitchum, reaching #69 on the Billboard Pop Singles Chart.